Figure It Out
by butterflydreaming
Summary: A one blanket fic.[one shot] Yukito and Touya need to get warm. But is this real?


1860 Words

This would fit into the manga canon, volume #3. Written for the livejournal community OneBlanket. None of these characters belong to me.

"Figure it Out"

Ice was in the rain, winter rain, more cruel than snow. Colder than snow. Snow was something that fell softly, making soft shapes of the garden outside the bay window. The window was made of small, beveled panels; looking through it, out into the garden, was like looking into a kaleidescope. In winter, gentle winter when Yue and Cerberus and Clow lounged together by a cozy fire, the garden through the window sparkled in crystal and silver.

Ice was in the rain, and Yue was frozen from inside outward. That it -- the ice, the rain, winter -- was a metaphor mattered little to him. It wasn't real, any more than he was real. No longer allowed the oblivion of sleep since woken for the Judgement, he existed in metaphor. The rain made a barrier between him and his false self -- as he thought of Tsukishiro Yukito -- who was beneath even Yue's distain. Yet it would not go on much longer. They would soon both be non-existent. Yukito's corporeality stuttered and failed as Yue's store of life-sustaining magic emptied; the Moon Guardian waned.

The sound of a rich, male voice calling out roused Yukito into consciousness. Yue turned away from the desperate concern. There was a source of life-sustaining magic there, too; Yue turned away from its call. Kinomoto Touya, elder brother of Yue's new Mistress, plunged through trees and hedges toward a pale figure lying on cold grass. Yue hunched down in the rain. Yukito bumbled into awareness and slowly sat up.

-y-y-y-

"Don't scare me like that!"

Yukito tried to smile. "I'm just… really sleepy." He managed but felt too tired to smile fully. "These days." Touya did not look at all reassured by the smile. "It's so strange. I got plenty of sleep last night." Yukito found himself apologizing for not meeting Touya the night before and for not answering the phone. He tried to explain that it was White Day… but then the day went white all over, as if a blizzard had blown in. A worry welled up as he collapsed, that Touya would get cold in all that white snow… .

-y-y-y-

"C'mon Yuki." Touya hunched against the wind. It blew stronger with every gust, changed from a wet slap of sleet into an ice-barbed flail. "Are you sure that lock isn't frozen?" When Touya blew at his gloveless hands, Yukito saw how his fingers had gone white and his lips had lost color and looked grayish. He wasn't shivering anymore, either.

Yukito was, himself, cold to his core. His thoughts were muddled. The house key in his grip wouldn't slide into the lock, but it was the right key; it had to be the right key. It was so small that it could have been worn as a pendant, or on a watch chain and kept in a waistcoat pocket. "This is the key, To-ya," he mumbled. It wasn't the right answer to the question that his friend had asked, but it was the only thought that Yukito had. "This...". He stared at the metal doorlatch, which was reflecting the feeble sunlight. The sun had set and was almost gone. Twilight was cold and night would be colder; the boys had to get sheltered indoors soon. The key adamantly refused insertion in the lock.

Touya's hands wrapped around Yukito's hand that was holding the key. He turned Yukito's hand over, gently, until the key was repostitioned, upside-down from the way that the pale haired boy had been holding it. He was standing behind Yukito's shoulder, the taller boy's chest pressing against a double layer of sweaters because Touya had given his up to Yukito, selflessly generous as Touya always was. Yukito could hear Touya's thin breaths close to his ear. The key fit and turned, and the door pushed open.

The boys shuffled into the dark interior. They closed the door behind them in a hurry to shut out the cold. They succeeded in shutting out the wind and the light, but the air inside was still chilled enough to be a refrigerator. Yukito's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. Touya swayed in place, either still waiting for his sight to catch up with the lack of light, or because he didn't have the energy to move. Their breaths made hazy clouds in a long room with curtained windows. There were two more doorways that Yukito could not see beyond and a fireplace, coldly empty at the room's end. The furnishings were sparse: an lumpy, red armchair by the window, a narrow, stiff looking sofa with an end table barely big enough for the antiquated lamp squatting on it, and a bookcase with too much space for the few books perched on its shelves. Yukito moved away from the door, and Touya shuffled after him.

"Not much... warmer in here," Touya commented in a low voice.

"We can make a fire," suggested Yukito. Rubbing his arms and stopping his feet to try to get some warmth back, he crossed to investigate the fireplace. An iron stand beside it held a few meager pieces of wood and some thin kindling.

Touya sat slowly onto the sofa. "There might... be... matches...". When his thought trailed off without finishing, Yukito went to him with concern. Yukito reached over to the lamp and twisted the knob, but no light came on. The lamp wasn't electric. "...in the kitchen," Touya sighed, finally. Touya was in bad shape, Yukito realized. He was so used to Touya's strength that he hadn't seen how being caught out in inadequate clothing had gone beyond discomfort for Touya. The young man slumped; he looked as if he was about to fall asleep, sitting up, in his wet clothing.

Yukito hurried to the fireplace. While he stacked in the little bit of wood and kindling, the wind wailed down the ventilation shaft, rattling the flu. The space was so big, and the little pile for the fire so small. "To-ya," he said, going back, "When I get the fire started, we will have to sit close to it. I'm going to look for those matches. Don't fall asleep, okay?" The young man's answering nod was slow but definite.

The house was enormous and empty except for a stale chill. Luck was with Yukito, because he found a kitchen in the first direction that he searched. _I have to get Touya warm_ he thought to himself as he opened one empty drawer after another. _Touya always takes care of me, but he gives too much._ His luck was short lived. Each drawer and cabinet that he opened was bare of anything but dust.

Room after room, the house gave evidence that it was forgotten and uninhabited. Yukito still shivered in spite of the pace of his search. He unearthed a bedroom where the bed was draped in a moth-eaten coverlet of wine dark plush. He bundled it into his arms and ran back down a winding stairway to return to Touya.

Touya had pulled away one of the heavy curtains to let a little light into the room. The window was made of small, beveled panels. Touya was slumped in the red armchair, looking out through the window into a kaleidescope of crystal and silver. There was a garden. Under the whip of wind and icy rain were frozen shapes with a glint like sapphire daggers. It was a dead garden, blasted by harsh winter.

With the thin blue of twilight falling on it, Touya's face showed a ghastly pallor. His cheeks and gray lips were chapped and dry looking; his eyes were red; his look was unfocused. Yukito dropped the rumpled cloth bundle at his feet. He hesitated, then bent his head down until his forehead touched Touya's forehead. His skin was clammy.

Yukito didn't want to pull away. For a moment that lingered, he let their breaths mingle. "You don't have a fever, but your skin is really cold." He moved his hands decisively from Touya's shoulders to the buttons of Touya's soaked shirt. "You'll be warmer under the blanket without your shirt," he reasoned aloud. "I'll help you with it." Touya did not protest. Yukito loosened the cuffs and peeled the sticky shirt away. Quickly, he pulled the edge of the musty coverlet up over the young man's bare skin. Then Yukito took a few steps away to put the shirt over the back of the sofa. Without looking at his friend, Yukito stripped himself of his sweater layers. Both were soggy. He felt better without them, but the nip of the air in the room chased him under the other end of the fuzzy bedcover. He shivered against Touya's damp jeans and the frigid floor.

"Yuki. Come up here."

Yukito looked at the small, waiting space that Touya had made for him in the chair. "Okay," he said softly. He couldn't hold back the sigh that escaped him when he snuggled in next to Touya and skin touched skin. It felt good, ridiculously good, to touch him, and Touya pulled their bodies closer together. Their faces brushed against each other. Using the justification to himself that he had to get Touya warm, Yukito rubbed his hands briskly over Touya's shoulders and back. "You're so cold, To-ya."

"Yuki." Touya's exhalation sent a shiver coursing through Yukito. "You feel good." His big hands pulled the volumous cloth more securely around their close bodies.

Yukito's hands stopped. The boys were chest-to-chest. Yukito was afraid to lift his chin, which would bring his mouth level with Touya's lips. He swallowed the tightness in his throat. It fell into his gut and dropped lower as it became a deep heat. This was his fantasy, the thing he had wished for so often: to be holding Touya closely. Still to shy to lift his head, he lowered it instead againt the other boy's chest and listened to the resounding heartbeat.

Then he felt strong fingers sifting through his hair. They caressed the fringe around his face and the top of his head. He closed his eyes; he didn't move. Nothing had ever felt so good as this.

Nothing more happened for a long time, until lips, dry but warm, gently pressed against Yukito's forehead. He felt them brush with tenderness, nudging aside his bangs. They traveled with a touch that was not quite a kiss, moving along his temple, to the corner of his eye. A hand moved off of his back and lifted his chin up. With his eyes still closed, Yukito's lips connected to the strong, warm lips that sought his in a slow kiss.

He didn't want to speak, but his heart was so full that he had to ask. "Is this what you've wanted, too?" Being held felt wonderful. Being loved… could he be loved?

Touya's voice was soft, almost distant. It was full of the caring that Yukito always had wanted to hear. Yet he didn't say,_ I love you._ Instead, with his arms cradling Yukito in a careful embrace, he said, "Figure it out."

Outside, the wind and rain howled.

-y-y-y-


End file.
